


Make my mistakes matter

by Alch



Series: Among the Stars [2]
Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hoshi Meguri (IDOLiSH7), Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, IDOLiSH7 Flash Bang 2019, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Ending, Royal idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alch/pseuds/Alch
Summary: The first time he sees it, it has been several months since the events occurred on Mistero.The awareness hits him suddenly and Lazu asks himself for how long things have been going like that, how he could miss that. He, the one usually so attentive to everything concerning his King.Carnelian is sad.





	Make my mistakes matter

_ Still, I check my vital signs_  
_Choked up, I realize_  
_I’ve been less than half myself  
_ _For more than half my life_

The first time he sees it, it has been several months since the events occurred on Mistero. 

The awareness hits him suddenly and Lazu asks himself for how long things have been going like that, how he could miss that. He, the one usually so attentive to everything concerning his King. 

Carnelian is sad. 

But Lazu is too new to emotions, so little used to feeling them that he can’t recognize them by empathising, somehow. He still feels like he should fight them, silence them, eradicate them from his heart, like when he swore to himself that he would never hurt Carnelian again, silently staying by his side for so many years.

Lazu is not used to the freedom he has now. It disorientates him, confuses him. And it makes him blind. 

That’s why, when he realizes it for the first time, Lazu knows he has to do something: he has already lost too much time. What to do, anyway, is a big question - to which Lazu can’t find an answer. That failure hunts him down like a predator looking for a prey: it stalks him, hurts him, tires him down to the point that at night Lazu holes himself up in his room, exhausted and frustrated, with no other answer but to stare at the night sky without sleeping, until the next morning finds him still at the window, his mind blank, his heart restless. 

The second time he sees it, the sadness in his King’s eyes is shameless - it doesn’t bother to hide but instead it boasts its presence, ripping a wild growl out of Lazu, a wave of violent, barely repressed anger, a fit of blinding jealousy. Sadness can’t soil Carnelian’s eyes that way: it’s an infamy that Lazu can’t allow to exist.

«You’re distracted,» he hears the King say. He’s not scolding him: with time, Lazu has learned to recognize which emotion is behind Carnelian’s words, even if it’s not as explicit as rage. «Is there something bothering you?»

Lazu shakes his head, not yet used to talking about himself as the King would wish. He always makes an effort to do it, but most of the time his mouth opens and nothing comes out of it. When that happens, Carnelian accepts Lazu’s confusion with a benign smile, while by shaking his head he relieves Lazu from a task too difficult to carry out. Lazu’s not used to that indulgence either. At first, it stings on his skin like a thousand needles, making him feel incompetent, incapable to deal with himself. 

«Lazu?»

The guard stares into the King’s eyes. The sadness is still there, a veil that clouds the light color of his irises. A veil Lazu wants to rip off no matter what. 

The third time occurs at night. A yell tear Lazu away from his new habit of staring at the night sky to search for answers. He’s shaken by a chill and he can clearly feel the sweat sticking his heavy clothes to his skin as he springs forward. A few more steps later, he’s in the King’s chamber. Carnelian lies in his bed, the sheets wrapped around his body like coils of iron torturing his body - a horrific, ethereal sight. 

Lazu is immediately at his side and the pained expression he reads on his King’s face upsets him more than he would ever let himself feel before. His hand runs to caress the forehead dripping with sweat and Carnelian seems almost relieved from that contact, seeking it out when he thinks it is going to leave him and sighing when Lazu moves his hand from his forehead to his cheek. 

«You’re here...» Carnelian murmurs, now barely awake, his glazed, feverish big eyes looking at Lazu.

«I’m here,» Lazu reassures him.

«Everything was in flames, everything was dying around me… and it was my fault, it was what I wanted, what I asked the Star Jewel. I’m sorry Lazu, I’m so sorry… I've caused so much pain...»

The King’s voice is nothing more than a moan, it seeks some kind of pity and forgiveness that Lazu hates. He understands now what he wasn’t able to see before: Carnelian is still suffering because of what he tried to do on Mistero, because of his wish for everything to end and start all over again, because of his desperate search for peace. 

How could he be so blind? How could he not understand that, even if everything went well in the end, Carnelian would always bring along the suffocating awareness that he was going to destroy everything, and doing it willingly, because of a visceral desire for everything to perish?

At that moment, Lazu knows what to do.

It’s easy. Way easier than he thought.

To leave everything behind, to go away. To convince Carnelian that it’s the right thing to do.

The court doesn’t ask anything, no one seeks explanations. 

When Lazu orders it, when he says it’s “their King’s desire”, everyone bows and does what they have been asked to do. Even if Carnelian doesn’t know anything yet. 

Probably that’s the first real decision Lazu has taken in total autonomy since he stopped living only as a function of his King. And even if Lazu can’t find a name to the sensation now swelling in his chest, he knows that it’s what is making him walk tall, following a steady path through the court’s hallways, invested by an authority that he has never had, something he has just taken possession of.

«We’re going away. Today.»

Carnelian, still in bed, looks at him without understanding.

«You cannot keep being so sick and this place has done nothing but worsen the situation. We will go away, at least for a while, until you get better.»

Lazu reads in his King’s eyes the will to oppose his decision. It lasts a few seconds and that’s the first time Lazu doesn’t avert his eyes because he needs to absorb all that the King’s gaze is saying. So he can see the veil of sadness emerging again - at that moment, he has the feeling that Carnelian is breaking down. He clearly sees him giving in, lowering his head in a gesture that goes against every logic, that feels like the worst crime someone could ever commit. 

Carnelian says no word, agreeing by staying silent, and Lazu takes him away that same morning, fighting against the instinct to hold him in his arms and carry him away from the pain.

In Lazu’s chest, something arises furiously and, for the first time, he’s not deaf to it. He asks himself what is that feeling of burning from the inside that is devouring him, that makes him think he would die if Carnelian never smiled again. 

✽✽✽

Coda’s words have lost their meaning for a while, but Carnelian realizes that just now, as in a blink of an eye. He comes back to the reality his body is living in, but his mind isn’t following. Coda is radiant, warm, alive as he would have never thought he’d see, and Carnelian finds himself incapable of handling the existence of that life he thought he had ended and that was on his conscience now. 

Carnelian is glad Coda is here, of course, but at the same time it’s so difficult to deal with his presence: there are too many memories, too much pain and so much guilt that Carnelian can’t stop his mind from going away from time to time so that he can breathe. 

«...must love you so much.»

Carnelian frowns at those words, the only ones he was able to understand, out of all the talking Coda did on his own. He hopes his surprised look can make the boy repeat himself, but Coda smiles instead, holding in his features some kind of soft awareness that Carnelian can’t explain.

«Who does?»

Who loves him? No, there’s no such person on all the Six Stars that could ever feel that kind of thing for someone who tried to end life itself. Carnelian can’t explain why Coda still comes to see him so often since he left the court to live in that house far away from the city and the nightmares of that place. 

«Lazu,» Coda says, amused, like it’s obvious and pointless to repeat.

«Lazu is my most loyal servant. He has to love his King.»

«He doesn't love his King. He loves you, Carnelian.»

Carnelian is about to say that Coda is not making any sense because _ he is _ the King, but Coda takes his hand and holds it in his grip, with a new, wider, more beautiful smile painted on his lips that takes Carnelian’s breath away. If he could define what happiness is, it would be Coda himself. 

«He did this for you,» Coda speaks again. «He left everything and took you away so that you could feel better. Can’t you see it?»

Carnelian looks around as if he should look for something concrete. The countryside gives him back the placid atmosphere of a late afternoon, calm and wise, eternal. _ Lazu gave me... this? _

Something tightens in his chest. Carnelian feels as if he could die because of it. 

«Why do you keep coming, after what I’ve done?» 

Carnelian can’t stop himself from asking that, even if it has nothing to do with what they’re talking about.

«Because I can understand you.»

«Would you have done the same?» 

Carnelian doesn’t know if he wants to be understood, maybe not - not by Coda, anyway.

«No. There are too many beautiful things in this universe for it to end. But I forgave you, Carnelian. I saw through your desperation, your loneliness, and I forgave you. You should do the same.»

How could he? How can he forgive himself when at night he still dreams about the Fragment’s voice whispering to him to make his wish and end everything? When he still feels the power and the destruction in his hands and the fulfilling nothingness that would have come if he hadn’t understood how horrible his wish was? 

The universe didn’t end, but not because Carnelian took a step back and saw his mistake in time. The universe didn’t end because the Observer of the Stars sacrificed himself, bringing everything to safety. If it was up to him, now there would be nothing.

«I don’t think Lazu will ever forgive me.»

Another rambling thought, another terrible doubt that keeps him awake at night. Because sometimes Lazu appears in his nightmares, too, and when Carnelian dreams about him, the sight of his corpse is the worse thing condemning him. Carnelian believed he was ready to sacrifice anything for his wish and realized too late that the only thing he wasn’t ready to lose was the one he almost lost. 

No, Lazu won’t forgive him for all the years Carnelian stole from him because of his desire for annihilation. 

«If you’re going to keep insulting him like this, of course he won’t forgive you.»

«If you were not my servant, what would you have done with your life?»

Since Coda left, that afternoon, Carnelian hasn’t stopped thinking about his words. And about Lazu. And about his words about Lazu. However, no matter how long he thought about them, he couldn’t understand what Coda meant and, in the end, Carnelian found himself more confused than before. 

Lazu lifts his gaze from the plate and opens his mouth without saying anything. He has no idea how to answer that kind of question, simply because he doesn’t think a life where he’s not Carnelian’s servant is worthy of being lived. 

Without him… without him…

At the thought, his heart acts weird and sucks the air out of his lungs. It must be his heart, it has to be, because it’s where Lazu feels something tightening. It hurts.

«Alone. I would be very alone.» 

Lazu knows loneliness - it’s one of the fewest things he allowed himself to feel in the years spent beside his King. Or rather, one of the fewest emotions he was never able to get out of his chest. 

«That’s not what I asked.»

«But it’s the only answer I can give you, Sire. I’ve never thought of a life without you. It doesn’t make any sense to me.»

Carnelian nods slowly. He thinks he can understand. As he always thought, Lazu is his servant: the kind of love he feels for his King is what makes him feel alone thinking about not having him in his life, because that way Lazu would lose his purpose.

«Coda said something weird this afternoon. He said you love me» Carnelian adds - he doesn’t know what he expects from that conversation, but he can’t stop himself. «I explained to him that a servant’s devotion to his King is a kind of love itself, but he wasn’t convinced. Lazu, do you beli-»

Carnelian can’t go on, not when, looking for the guard’s eyes, he found them staring at him, big and feverish and so full of emotions, as if everything that Lazu is had melted in his light irises. It takes Carnelian’s breath away. And, for a foolish moment, he thinks that Lazu is the most amazing miracle the Star Jewel has ever created. 

«It hurts. So many times, as if I couldn’t breathe. And then it suddenly stops, when I see you and you see me. I have never felt like this before, but now, if you look at me, I feel like I really exist. And if you avert your gaze from me, I feel like I’m dying. And if you’re in pain, I feel like I’m dying. If you stop smiling, I feel like I’m dying. If you had stayed one more night in that court, with those nightmares, with that sadness in your eyes, I would have died. I don’t know how Coda would call all of this, but… Sire… I… can’t stop being at your side.»

As he spoke, Lazu has taken a hand to his chest; now, he is gripping tight on the dark tunic he’s wearing like he could find relief in that gesture. Carnelian has never seen him at the mercy of his own feelings like that and he’s shocked by the way Lazu seems to shake, blooming into a life he has never fully lived. At the same time, though, Lazu looks so fragile, so scared, that Carnelian can’t stop himself from taking a few steps forward, cancelling the space between them, and holding him close. 

Lazu has never been held like this by Carnelian. He has never felt this particular warmth wrapped around him, has never smelled the skin of his neck, where now he’s hiding himself, almost naturally, as his arms run to the King’s back instinctively, following some sort of muscle memory he has never had, but that is telling him now what’s the right thing to do. 

«Someone could say that’s love» he hears the King say.

«Then it’s love» Lazu agrees - who cares about the name when he feels so complete inside the arms of the only person he lives for? 

«Even after all the mistakes I did? Even when I deprived you of your own self for so long?»

«I told your father about Coda and the other merchants. I’m the reason you started to hear the Star Jewel’s voice in your head, I’m the only reason you suffered so much. How could I judge you when you’re still tolerating my presence after all that...?»

At that moment, Carnelian loosens the embrace so that he can see Lazu’s eyes. While he was suffering for his guilt, not even once has Carnelian thought about the pain Lazu felt, about the way he was also blaming himself for what happened.

Carnelian keeps making mistakes, he keeps failing to understand what really matters: the people still beside him and their feelings. And Lazu keeps paying the price for that. 

«I’m sorry» he murmurs, raising a hand to the guard’s face and caressing it delicately, kindly. At first, Lazu tries not to indulge in that contact, but he gives in after a few moments, finding himself so needy for these caresses, for affection, almost as if he was starving and someone had just fed him. 

However, before Lazu can do anything, it’s Carnelian who steps further. He gets closer to his face and looks at him for some moments before his lips land on Lazu’s, barely touching them and then moving more daringly in an inexperienced attempt to kiss him and express everything he’s feeling right now. 

Lazu could freeze on the spot, could take a step back, could deny him that contact. He could do that if he wanted to, but he finds out he is able to give what he’s feeling a name in the exact moment their lips find each other. Those lips, their softness, their warmth, their taste - everything that gesture is made of is the definition itself of what he’s feeling. And if that feeling is love, then love is Carnelian’s lips on his. 

«I don’t know how this is possible, but you bring new light to my mistakes. I would be lost without you, Lazu» Carnelian confesses, when they’re able to separate and look again in each other’s eyes - the kiss didn’t last long enough for them to be out of breath, yet they breathe heavily, like when something big and important and earthshaking has just happened and you have to reassess the reality around you. 

And maybe it’s what happened, even if it was just a kiss. The most important thing. The biggest miracle the Star Jewel has ever made. Two lonely people, so close to each other that they couldn’t see one another, finally colliding and becoming binary stars, forever linked in the same orbit, in the same destiny. 

Carnelian doesn’t need to forgive himself if Lazu already forgave him.  
Lazu doesn’t have to live in the past if Carnelian is there to show him the future.

_ Wake up_  
_Fall in love again_  
_Wage war on gravity_  
_There’s so much_  
_Worth fighting for  
_ _You’ll see_

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really enjoyed taking part in this Flash-bang! It was amazing ** I'm grateful I had the opportunity to write something new about Carnelian and Lazu and to collab with @Harusomi, who made a splendid art about this fic! GO SEE IT, QUICKLY, IT'S RIGHT HERE!! https://twitter.com/harusomi2/status/1162753833895960576?s=19 
> 
> A big thank you to the mods who made all this possible, I'm really grateful ♥  
And also to antheeia and nishanightray who beta-read this story and made it possible! 
> 
> The quotes in the fic are from "Nine" by Sleeping at last - their songs never fail to inspire me and they are the perfect soundtracks for the Hoshimeguri!
> 
> Thanks for reading, bye~


End file.
